Also known as: quid pro quo claim · quid-pro-quo claims · quid pro quo
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
An allegation that one party conditioned a benefit, opportunity, or official action on the recipient's provision of a specific favor or return performance. The claim requires proof of a direct reciprocal exchange rather than mere influence or access.
Queenie Quinones, a sitting judge, attends a private social event hosted by a recently convicted racketeer who invites numerous guests with organized-crime ties. A disciplinary complaint alleges that the attendance itself creates an appearance of impropriety.
Quade Quincy, owner of a coal company, sues federal officials after being assessed liability for retiree health benefits under a statute that retroactively imposes costs on prior operators. He argues the statute effects a taking by forcing an exchange of payments for no corresponding new benefit. The court examines whether the mandated payments constitute an unconstitutional quid pro quo.
Eastern Enterprises was organized as a Massachusetts business trust in 1929 under the name Eastern Gas and Fuel Associates. Until 1965, Eastern conducted extensive coal mining operations centered in West Virginia and Pennsylvania. As a signatory to each National Bituminous Coal Wage Agreement executed between 1947 and 1964, Eastern made contributions of over $60 million to the 1947 and 1950 Welfare and Retirement Funds. In 1963, Eastern decided to transfer its coal-related operations to a subsidiary, Eastern Associated Coal Corp. The transfer was completed by the end of 1965. It was described in Eastern's federal income tax return as an agreement by EACC to assume all of Eastern's liabilities arising out of coal mining and marketing operations in exchange for Eastern's receipt of EACC's stock. Eastern retained its stock interest in EACC through a subsidiary corporation, Coal Properties Corp., until 1987. It received dividends of more than $100 million from EACC during that period. In 1987, Eastern sold its interest in Coal Properties Corp. to Peabody Holding Company, Inc. Following enactment of the Coal Industry Retiree Health Benefit Act of 1992, the Commissioner of Social Security assigned to Eastern the obligation for Combined Fund premiums respecting over 1,000 retired miners who had worked for the company before 1966. The assignment rested on Eastern's status as the pre-1978 signatory operator for whom the miners had worked for the longest period of time. Eastern's premium for a 12-month period exceeded $5 million. Eastern responded by suing the Commissioner, as well as the Combined Fund and its trustees, in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Eastern asserted that the Coal Act, either on its face or as applied, violates substantive due process and constitutes a taking of its property in violation of the Fifth Amendment. The District Court granted summary judgment for respondents on all claims. The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseQuiana Quach faces jail for nonpayment of child support after a hearing conducted without appointed counsel. She claims the state's refusal to provide counsel creates an unconstitutional exchange in which her liberty is traded for an uncounseled finding of willful nonpayment. The Court evaluates whether due process requires counsel when incarceration is at stake.
In June 2003 a South Carolina family court entered an order requiring petitioner Michael Turner to pay respondent Rebecca Rogers $51.73 per week to help support their child. Rogers' father Larry Price currently has custody of the child and is also a respondent before this Court. Over the next three years Turner repeatedly failed to pay the amount due and was held in contempt on five occasions. The first four times he was sentenced to 90 days' imprisonment but ultimately paid what he owed. He paid twice without being jailed and twice after spending a few days in custody. The fifth time he did not pay but completed a six-month sentence. After his release Turner remained in arrears. On March 27, 2006 the family court clerk issued a new show cause order because Turner was $5,728.76 behind. Following an initial postponement due to Turner's failure to appear, his civil contempt hearing took place on January 3, 2008. Turner and Rogers were both present without representation by counsel. The court clerk stated the arrearage amount. The judge asked Turner if there was anything he wanted to say. Turner described getting back on drugs after release, breaking his back in September, filing for disability and SSI benefits, and hoping for another chance. The judge then asked Rogers if she had anything to say. The judge found Turner in willful contempt and sentenced him to twelve months in the Oconee County Detention Center. Turner could purge the contempt by reaching a zero balance. The judge completed a prewritten Order for Contempt of Court form but left blank the statement indicating whether Turner was gainfully employed and had the ability to make support payments when due. Turner served the full sentence. While serving the sentence Turner appealed with pro bono counsel claiming a federal constitutional right to counsel at the contempt hearing. The South Carolina Supreme Court rejected the claim after Turner completed his sentence. Turner sought certiorari, and the United States Supreme Court granted review. Within months of his release from the twelve-month imprisonment Turner was again the subject of civil contempt proceedings. He had arrears of $13,814.72 as of December 2010. Another hearing was scheduled for May 2011.
View caseQuest Quail applies for a permit to rebuild a beachfront home. The commission grants the permit only if Quail records a public-access easement across the property. Quail claims the condition is an unconstitutional exaction amounting to a taking because it demands an easement in exchange for the development right.
The Nollans own a beachfront lot in Ventura County, California. A concrete seawall approximately eight feet high separates the beach portion of their property from the rest of the lot. The historic mean high tide line determines the lot's oceanside boundary. The Nollans originally leased their property with an option to buy, and the building on the lot was a small bungalow totaling 504 square feet. The Nollans' option to purchase was conditioned on their promise to demolish the bungalow and replace it. On February 25, 1982, they submitted a permit application to the California Coastal Commission proposing to demolish the existing structure and replace it with a three-bedroom house. The Commission informed them that the permit would be granted subject to the condition that they allow the public an easement to pass across a portion of their property bounded by the mean high tide line and their seawall. On June 3, 1982, the Nollans filed a petition for writ of administrative mandamus in the Ventura County Superior Court to invalidate the access condition. The court remanded the case to the Commission for a full evidentiary hearing. After the hearing, the Commission reaffirmed the condition. The Superior Court ruled in favor of the Nollans on statutory grounds and directed that the permit condition be struck. While the Commission's appeal to the California Court of Appeal was pending, the Nollans tore down the bungalow, built the new house, and bought the property. The Court of Appeal reversed the Superior Court. The Nollans appealed to this Court, raising only the constitutional question.
View caseQuinn Quigley, a bank employee, alleges that her supervisor conditioned job retention and promotions on her submission to sexual demands. She files a Title VII claim asserting that the supervisor's conduct created a quid pro quo arrangement in which continued employment was traded for sexual compliance.
In 1974 Mechelle Vinson met Sidney Taylor, a vice president and branch manager of what is now Meritor Savings Bank. Taylor provided Vinson an employment application, hired her the next day as a teller-trainee, and supervised her subsequent promotions to teller, head teller, and assistant branch manager over four years at the same branch, all based on merit alone. In September 1978 Vinson notified Taylor she was taking indefinite sick leave. The bank discharged her on November 1, 1978, for excessive use of that leave. Vinson sued Taylor and the bank, alleging she had constantly been subjected to sexual harassment by Taylor throughout her employment. At the eleven-day bench trial Vinson testified that Taylor initially acted in a fatherly manner. He soon invited her to dinner and suggested they go to a motel for sexual relations, which she eventually agreed to out of fear of losing her job. She further testified that Taylor made repeated demands for sexual favors at the branch. They had intercourse some forty or fifty times over several years. He fondled her in front of other employees, followed her into the women's restroom, exposed himself, and forcibly raped her on several occasions. These activities stopped after 1977 when she began a steady relationship. Taylor denied all allegations of sexual activity or advances and claimed the accusations arose from a business dispute. The bank denied any knowledge of such conduct. The District Court denied relief without resolving whether a sexual relationship existed between Vinson and Taylor. It found instead that any such relationship would have been voluntary and unrelated to her employment, advancement, or promotions. The court concluded that Vinson was not the victim of sexual harassment or discrimination and determined that the bank lacked notice of Taylor's alleged actions and therefore could not be held liable. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed and remanded for further proceedings on a hostile-environment theory. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in 1985.
View caseQuentin Quinn, a publisher of public-domain works, challenges a statute that extends existing copyright terms by twenty years. He contends the extension functions as an improper exchange in which Congress grants additional monopoly protection without any new creative contribution from authors.
In 1998 Congress enacted the Copyright Term Extension Act, which extended the duration of all federal copyrights by twenty years. For works created by identified natural persons the new term runs from creation until seventy years after the author's death. For anonymous works, pseudonymous works, and works made for hire the term is ninety-five years from publication or one hundred twenty years from creation, whichever expires first. The statute applied these extended terms both to copyrights already in existence and to works created after its effective date. Petitioners are individuals and businesses whose products or services build on copyrighted works that have gone into the public domain. They filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia seeking a declaration that the extension of existing copyrights exceeded Congress's power under the Copyright Clause and violated the First Amendment. On cross-motions for judgment on the pleadings the district court entered judgment for the Attorney General. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed. A majority of the panel upheld the statute against both challenges, while Judge Sentelle dissented in part on the Copyright Clause issue. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to address whether the extension of existing copyrights exceeds Congress's power under the Copyright Clause and whether the extension violates the First Amendment.
View caseThe plaintiff must show that a tangible job benefit or detriment was conditioned on submission to sexual conduct. The exchange must be explicit or implicit and tied directly to an employment decision.
No. At common law the agreement itself completes the conspiracy. Proof that the parties reached a mutual understanding to exchange official action for campaign contributions is sufficient even if no money changes hands.
Yes. Discipline may be imposed when associations undermine public confidence in judicial integrity even without proof that any actual exchange occurred.
The condition must bear an essential nexus and rough proportionality to the impact of the proposed development. An unrelated easement demand is treated as an exaction that requires compensation.
…review of the police power, this provision is eminently reasonable. Even accepting the Court's novel insistence on a precise quid pro quo of burdens and benefits, there is a reasonable relationship between the public benefit and the burden created by appellants' development. The movement of development closer to the ocean…